Indoor playgrounds can be a growing trend since these play areas have become a boon for childcare for companies, helping kids blow off energy while holiday shopping inside the mall, or working as a method for daycare to maintain kids focused.
But where did the notion of indoor playgrounds result from? How did indoor playground equipment develop or arrived at be? Let's look into the history of indoor playground equipment.
The First Indoor Playground
The very first indoor playground might be a whole lot over the age of you might expect. The very first recorded indoor playground could be traced straight back to a gymnasium in Germany in the 1920s, where ropes, bars, and ladders were create for kids to climb on.
Kids being kids, they loved crawling, climbing, and exploring and jumped directly in. The success of this might lead to the idea spreading across Europe.
The Adventure Playground in California
This trend was mostly a European idea prior to its way to the us in the 1950s with all the opening in the Adventure Playground in California, noted for its wooden structures and open-ended play.
However, the concept didn't catch on as quickly as many thought it would.
The 1980s Indoor Playground Revolution
Nevertheless it wasn't till the 1980s that indoor playground equipment really took off, thanks in large part to your company called SoftPlay, founded by Bill Kitchen. SoftPlay was one of the primary companies to generate modular soft playground equipment, bringing their items to malls across America and popularizing the idea of indoor playgrounds.
The Rise of Soft Play Structures
Within the late 1990s, a fresh trend in indoor playgrounds emerged: soft play structures. This shift was largely influenced by a combination of safety concerns and advances in technology that allowed for the creation of large, colorful, and dynamic soft play structures.
These playgrounds often feature different themed areas, from pirate ships to castles, with slides, ball pits, and climbing structures. The mixture of safer spaces which were padded and made kids a lot less at risk of injury and the bright colors and imaginary themes made them incredibly popular with kids and parents alike.
What's the Future?
Today, indoor playgrounds continue to evolve and offer new and exciting methods for kids to try out and explore inside a safe environment. Since malls are less common in several places, as is at-work daycare, the demand isn't quite as much as these used to be.
Many of the same structures or designs are useful for "Sheltered Outdoor Play Spaces" where rubber padding takes the location of gravel or sand with outdoor playgrounds that increasingly have these put in place underneath shaded areas to supply shelter from heat and sun.
These blurred lines may be the way forward for "indoor" playground equipment, but there's no question it will carry on and find its niche.
Today, indoor playground equipment and outdoor amusement park equipment is constantly evolve with advancements in safety and design, offering endless opportunities for imaginative play. So the next occasion you have your children to an indoor playground, look at the background and evolution that triggered those colorful structures and slides.
